By Dick Dorworth
One year ago, 100 percent of Idaho was in drought rated as abnormally dry and 30 percent was rated in extreme drought, according to the U.S. government National Integrated Drought Information System. Today, because of last winter’s better snowfall, only 60 percent of Idaho is rated as in abnormally dry drought, according to NIDIS. These ratings indicate that there’s not enough water to satisfy everyone’s needs or, at least, historical uses. As human population continues to increase and available water supply decreases, those needs and uses become more difficult to satisfy. Drought in the short term does not cause water shortages, but it does exacerbate them.
According to Lisa Horowitz, community development director of the City of Hailey, writing in “Big Life Magazine,” “We use a lot of water in Idaho. Idaho’s billion gallons of water use ranks fourth in the nation behind the greatly more populated states of California, Florida, and Texas…We also have green golf courses and lush lawns…On average, Wood River Valley residents use 700 gallons of water per day. The average Idahoan uses 200 gallons per day whereas the average U.S. citizen uses 100. All of this adds up to too much water use.”
Last February, the Big Wood & Little Wood Water Users Association, on behalf of 63 senior surface water users south and east of Silver Creek, filed delivery calls with the Idaho Department of Water Resources, claiming that junior rights users are depleting surface-water flows in the two rivers. There are 567 junior groundwater rights users in the cities of the Wood River Valley that could be affected by the calls, including cities, businesses and private citizens. According to Wendy Pabich, Ph.D., water advisor to Ketchum, the state rejected those calls for not following the proper filing procedures.
Two years ago Pabich was hired by the City of Ketchum as an independent contractor to be its water and energy advisor and to create a water and energy strategic analysis and plan for the city. This was a consequence of Mayor Nina Jonas’ longtime championing of water and energy conservation policies.
Pabich is president of Water Futures, where she provides strategic technical and policy consulting services related to water risk and security, water rights, land and water conservation, sustainable water use, wastewater planning, and the water-energy nexus to clients including ranchers and ranching associations, canal and irrigation companies, private equity firms, private investors, county governments, municipalities, attorneys, land trusts, nonprofits, technology firms, and Fortune 500 companies. Papich is a scientist, educator, speaker, adventurer, yogi, and artist. She taught for Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Sierra Institute, and has taken students to the wilds of Patagonia, the Himalaya, and Alaska.
According to Pabich, Ketchum is working collaboratively with the other Wood River Valley municipalities to more efficiently use water. Ketchum has joined such communities as Park City, Utah, Roseville and Oakdale, Calif., and Greeley, Colo., in offering its water users access to Water Smart software, which allows users to view and track water usage in real time, and learn to pay attention to how much water is used for what purposes.
At this writing, the Water Smart website (www.watersmart.com) claims that its users have saved 4,237,057,058 gallons of water, $22,204,874 and 37,291.35 tons of CO2, and growing by the minute.
The drought continues. The citizens of the Wood River Valley are learning to adapt.